It may seem to some here that I have dealt too much throughout this lecture with merely material questions; that I ought to have spoken more of intellectual progress; perhaps, as a clergyman, more also of spiritual and moral regeneration. I can only answer, that if this be a fault on my part, it is a deliberate one. I have spoken, whether rightly or wrongly, concerning what I know—concerning matters which are to me articles of faith altogether indubitable, irreversible, Divine. Be it that these are merely questions of physical improvement. I see no reason in that why they should be left to laymen, or urged only on worldly grounds and self-interest. I do not find that when urged on those grounds, the advice is listened to. I believe that it will not be listened to until the consciences of men, as well as their brains, are engaged in these questions; until they are put on moral grounds, shown to have connection with moral laws; and so made questions not merely of interest, but of duty, honour, chivalry. I cannot but see, moreover, how many phenomena, which are supposed to be spiritual, are simply physical; how many cases which are referred to my profession, are properly the object of the medical man. I cannot but see, that unless there be healthy bodies, it is impossible in the long run to have a generation of healthy souls; I cannot but see that mankind are as prone now as ever to deny the sacredness and perfection of God’s physical universe, as an excuse for their own ignorance and neglect thereof; to search the highest heaven for causes which lie patent at their feet, and like the heathen of old time, to impute to some capricious anger of the gods calamities which spring from their own greed, haste, and ignorance.